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Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness Announces First Grantee Cohort

COMMUNITY FUND FOR IMMIGRANT WELLNESS announces first grantee cohort

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 8th, 2018

A partnership of funders and community-based, immigrant-serving organizations collaborate to grant more than $200,000 to ten organizations in Greater Philadelphia

(Philadelphia, PA) – The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness announces its first ever grantee cohort. With a pooled fund of $212,500, the Community Fund will support a total of ten programs which promote health and wellness in immigrant and refugee communities throughout Greater Philadelphia. Grants range in size from $5,000 to $50,000 based on the proposed programs.

The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is designed to alter the traditional process of philanthropic giving. In this innovative approach, a group of nine community-based, immigrant-serving organizations define the grantmaking strategy and disseminated grant dollars from a pooled fund. This process shifts the power dynamic in the funder-grantee relationship by asking service providers to not only inform a funding process but to actually drive it.

In its first year, the Community Fund received a total of 63 applications across all three grant tiers. The requests totaled more than $1.6 million, indicating significant need in the immigrant community to support programs which promote health and wellness. Proposals represented a diverse set of immigrant-serving programs, ranging in populations served, program design, and geographic location.

“Too often funders create their priorities after an internal process that might not include any representation from those they aim to support,” said Oni Richards-Waritay, Executive Director of AFAHO and a member of the Community Fund granting group. “This process has proven the importance of ensuring that funding is driven by real needs within the community in order to be effective.”

“The immigrant and refugee communities are integral to the cultural diversity and economic prosperity of our region,” said Joe Pyle, President of the Scattergood Foundation. “Yet they often face unique and complex barriers to being well. Our approach of working directly with community-based providers to administer these grant dollars will help to bring culturally competent programs and services that will improve overall health and wellbeing.”

The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is administered by nine community-based, immigrant-serving organizations, including ACANA, AFAHO, HIAS PA, La Puerta Abierta, Nationalities Service Center, Puentes de Salud, Southeast by Southeast (a Mural Arts program), SEAMAAC, and Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. It is supported by the Scattergood Foundation, United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, Patricia Kind Family Foundation, The Claniel Foundation, and New Collossus Donors and facilitated by the Scattergood Foundation.